author
L. M. (Lewis Marshall) Hagood
1853–1936
A Methodist minister and physician, he wrote a notable 1890 history of Black life in the Methodist Episcopal Church. His work stands out as an early firsthand account of religion, race, and church leadership in post-Civil War America.
1 Audiobook
The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal Church
by L. M. (Lewis Marshall) Hagood
About the author
Born in Texas in 1853, Lewis Marshall Hagood became both a clergyman and a physician. He is best known for The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal Church (1890), a book that examines the place of Black members and ministers within American Methodism and reflects the struggles and ambitions of the era.
Hagood wrote from close knowledge of church life, and his book has endured because it combines history, advocacy, and personal perspective. For listeners interested in religion, Reconstruction, and African American history, his work offers a direct window into debates about equality, leadership, and opportunity in the late nineteenth century.
He died in Indianapolis in 1936. Even though relatively little biographical detail is widely preserved online, his writing continues to be remembered through library collections and reprints of his best-known work.